He knew he had to move quickly now; the others had seen the man drop, and by now they should have a pretty good idea exactly where Wayne was.
He picked up a rock and lobbed it over a nearby boulder, then started moving cat-like in the other direction. He climbed up onto another boulder and watched two men move away from him. They were stepping warily, their beam guns in their hands. Wayne wiped away a bead of perspiration, aimed carefully, and squeezed the firing stud twice.
Four down. Fifty-five to go.
A moment later, something hissed near his ear. Without waiting, he spun and rolled off the boulder, landing cat-like on his feet. Another crewman was standing on top of a nearby boulder. Wayne began to sweat; this pursuit seemed to be indefinitely prolonged, and it was beginning to look unlikely that he could avoid them forever.
He had dropped his pistol during the fall; it was wedged between a couple of rocks several feet away.
He heard someone call: "I got him. He fell off the rock. We'll take him back down below."
Then another voice—ominously. "He won't mind. He'll be glad we did it for him—afterwards."
"I'll go get him," said the first voice. The man stepped around the side of the boulder—just in time to have a hard-pitched rock come thunking into his midsection.
"Oof!" he grunted, took a couple of steps backwards, and collapsed.